Computer Law Commons^™

The Patentability Of Electromagnetic And Acoustic Signals In Canada, Natalie Raffoul

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The issue of the patentability of electromagnetic and acoustic signals has not been litigated in Canada. If, however, the issue does come forward for litigation, Canadian courts may decide differently than their American colleagues did. The Supreme Court of Canada’s ‘Harvard Mouse’ decision shows that the Canadian law on patentable subject matter differs from American law. Under the Canadian definition of manufacture, electromagnetic and acoustic signals could constitute patentable subject matter.

Information Privacy In Public Space: Location Data, Data Protection And The Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy, Teresa Scassa

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article considers whether the permissive disclosure provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and its substantially similar counterparts mean that law enforcement agents have ready access to information about our movements and activities, or whether s. 8 of the Charter plays a role in limiting the circumstances in which disclosure without notice or consent may take place.

Web 2.0 Regulation: A Risk Management Process, Pierre Trudel

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In order to describe the law relating to Web 2.0, we have to look at the normativity that really operates there. Effective norms engender strong enough risks for stakeholders that they find it in their interest to comply. State legislation is not the only thing that governs Internet activities; the normativity that governs the resources associated with Web 2.0 flows from what the technology permits and prohibits, and also largely from stakeholder practices. Configurations and practices create risk or shift risk onto others. However, state regulators may consider that the risks arising out of Internet activities are worrisome enough that …

Fair Dealing Or Fare Stealing?: Implications Of Canadian Copyright Law Reform On The Online Classroom, Louis Grilli, Daniel Huff, Andrea Shakespeare, Michael Bliemel

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article first examines Canadian copyright law as it pertains to distance education with a detailed review of literature, legislation and jurisprudence, including a comparison with influential law from the United States. Included in this analysis are the opinions of specialists and experts on distance education and copyright in the university environment, who were interviewed during this research. Based on the research findings, we have identified three distinct legislative outcomes. For each, we provide recommendations on how a university and other stakeholders might best protect their interests when confronted with any of these three possibilities.

Trust Account Fraud And Effective Information Security Management, Sameera Mubarak

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The integrity of lawyers’ trust accounts has come under scrutiny in the last few years. There are strong possibilities of information technology security breaches happening within the firms, either accidental or deliberate. The damage caused by these security breaches could be extreme. For example, a trust account fund in an Australian law firm was misused in a security breach in which Telstra charged A$50,000 for phone usage, mainly for ISD calls to Hong Kong. Our study involved interviewing principals of ten law companies to find out solicitors’ attitudes to computer security and the possibility of breaches of their trust accounts. …

Forensic Analysis Of The Windows 7 Registry, Khawla A. Alghafli, Andrew Jones, Thomas A. Martin

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The recovery of digital evidence of crimes from storage media is an increasingly time consuming process as the capacity of the storage media is in a state of constant growth. It is also a difficult and complex task for the forensic investigator to analyse all of the locations in the storage media. These two factors, when combined, may result in a delay in bringing a case to court. The concept of this paper is to start the initial forensic analysis of the storage media in locations that are most likely to contain digital evidence, the Windows Registry. Consequently, the forensic …

Reeling In Big Phish With A Deep Md5 Net, Brad Wardman, Gary Warner, Heather Mccalley, Sarah Turner, Anthony Skjellum

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Phishing continues to grow as phishers discover new exploits and attack vectors for hosting malicious content; the traditional response using takedowns and blacklists does not appear to impede phishers significantly. A handful of law enforcement projects — for example the FBI's Digital PhishNet and the Internet Crime and Complaint Center (ic3.gov) — have demonstrated that they can collect phishing data in substantial volumes, but these collections have not yet resulted in a significant decline in criminal phishing activity. In this paper, a new system is demonstrated for prioritizing investigative resources to help reduce the time and effort expended examining this …

The 2009 Analysis Of Information Remaining On Disks Offered For Sale On The Second Hand Market, Andy Jones, Craig Valli, Glenn S. Dardick, Iain Sutherland, G. Dabibi, Gareth Davies

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The ever increasing use and reliance upon computers in both the public and private sector has led to enormous numbers of computers being disposed of at the end of their useful life within an organisation. As the cost of computers has dropped, their use in the home has also continued to increase. In most organisations, computers have a relatively short life and are replaced on a regular basis with the result that, if not properly cleansed of data, they are released into the public domain containing data that can be relatively up to date. This problem is exacerbated by the …

Computer Forensics For Graduate Accountants: A Motivational Curriculum Design Approach, Grover S. Kearns

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Computer forensics involves the investigation of digital sources to acquire evidence that can be used in a court of law. It can also be used to identify and respond to threats to hosts and systems. Accountants use computer forensics to investigate computer crime or misuse, theft of trade secrets, theft of or destruction of intellectual property, and fraud. Education of accountants to use forensic tools is a goal of the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants). Accounting students, however, may not view information technology as vital to their career paths and need motivation to acquire forensic knowledge and skills. …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

The Darknet: A Digital Copyright Revolution, Jessica A. Wood

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

We are in the midst of a digital revolution. In this “Age of Peer Production,” armies of amateur participants demand the freedom to rip, remix, and share their own digital culture. Aided by the newest iteration of file sharing networks, digital media users now have the option to retreat underground, by using secure, private, and anonymous file sharing networks, to share freely and breathe new life into digital media. These underground networks, collectively termed “the Darknet[,] will grow in scope, resilience, and effectiveness in direct proportion to [increasing] digital restrictions the public finds untenable.” The Darknet has been called the …

Introduction: Contains Cover, Table Of Contents, Letter From The Editor, And Masthead, Nancy Porcari

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The Richmond Journal of Law and Technology is proud to present our Annual Survey issue, the third issue of the 2009–2010 academic year.

Residual Voting In Florida, James Hicks, Paul Gronke, Charles Stewart Iii

Scholarship@WashULaw

The residual vote rate is a metric that can be used to evaluate the comparative performance of election systems, particularly voting technology and ballot design. If collected at the appropriate levels of disaggregation (county- or more preferably precinct-level) and by different modes of balloting (in person, absentee, and early voting), the residual vote rate can identify ways that voter demographics, voting technology, and the time and place of casting the ballot may influence varying levels of voting errors.

This report describes a project that examined the residual vote rates in the state of Florida’s 2008 presidential preference primary, taking advantage …

Computer Forensic Functions Testing: Media Preparation, Write Protection And Verification, Yinghua Guo, Jill Slay

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The growth in the computer forensic field has created a demand for new software (or increased functionality to existing software) and a means to verify that this software is truly forensic i.e. capable of meeting the requirements of the trier of fact. In this work, we review our previous work---a function oriented testing framework for validation and verification of computer forensic tools. This framework consists of three parts: function mapping, requirements specification and reference set development. Through function mapping, we give a scientific and systemized description of the fundamentals of computer forensic discipline, i.e. what functions are needed in the …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Clustering Spam Domains And Destination Websites: Digital Forensics With Data Mining, Chun Wei, Alan Sprague, Gary Warner, Anthony Skjellum

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Spam related cyber crimes have become a serious threat to society. Current spam research mainly aims to detect spam more effectively. We believe the identification and disruption of the supporting infrastructure used by spammers is a more effective way of stopping spam than filtering. The termination of spam hosts will greatly reduce the profit a spammer can generate and thwart his ability to send more spam. This research proposes an algorithm for clustering spam domains extracted from spam emails based on the hosting IP addresses and tracing the IP addresses over a period of time. The results show that many …

Developing Voip Honeypots: A Preliminary Investigation Into Malfeasant Activity, Craig Valli

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

30 years ago PABX systems were compromised by hackers wanting to make long distance calls at some other entities expense. This activity faded as telephony became cheaper and PABX systems had countermeasures installed to overcome attacks. Now the world has moved onto the provision of telephony via broadband enabled Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) with this service now being provided as a replacement for conventional fixed wire telephony by major telecommunication providers worldwide. Due to increasing bandwidth it is possible for systems to support multiple voice connections simultaneously. The networked nature of the Internet allows for attackers of these VoIP …

Adaptation Of Pyflag To Efficient Analysis Of Seized Computer Data Storage, Aleksander Byrski, Wojciech Stryjewski, Bartłomiej Czechowicz

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Based on existing software aimed at investigation support in the analysis of computer data storage seized during investigation (PyFlag), an extension is proposed involving the introduction of dedicated components for data identification and filtering. Hash codes for popular software contained in NIST/NSRL database are considered in order to avoid unwanted files while searching and to classify them into several categories. The extension allows for further analysis, e.g. using artificial intelligence methods. The considerations are illustrated by the overview of the system's design.

Avoiding Sanctions At The E-Discovery Meet-And-Confer In Common Law Countries, Milton Luoma, Vicki Luoma

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The rules of civil procedure in common law countries have been amended to better deal with the requirements of electronic discovery. One of the key changes in case management is the scheduling of a meet-and-confer session where the parties to litigation must meet early in the case before any discovery procedures have begun to exchange information regarding the nature, location, formats, and pertinent facts regarding custody and control of a party’s electronically stored information (ESI). Failure to abide by the rules and participate in good faith at the meet-and-confer session can have dire consequences for the parties and lawyers involved. …